Posts Tagged ‘Germany’

Somewhere over France a bank of rain cloud, an inverted anvil of grey vapour, rises suddenly and singularly from the otherwise uninterrupted expanse of undulating whiteness below us. It throws a long, blue-grey shadow over the cloud canopy it defies, climbing vertically and coming to an end in a straight line that exactly describes a higher altitude, its upper limit a razor sharp edge, defying not just that lower strata but also expectations. It’s a surprise, an inexplicable shape, a visual shock.

Of course it only appears inexplicable. If I was sitting beside a meteorologist I might have it explained to me. The pressures at work, the anomalies, the weather fronts and the barometrics at play. I might be left (assuming it was a patient meteorologist) with a sound understanding, not only less mystified by what I was seeing but able, perhaps, to predict the next, capable of reading the conditions and spotting those that produce such a phenomenon. Assimilating the information, eliminating the surprise.

See it coming next time, in other words.

I’m not though. I’m sitting beside K and neither of us has a clue, so we crane our necks – her leaning over me – and stare at the funny thing till it goes past. We sit back and she returns to her book. Not a word. Sometimes it’s enough to look at something strange, then let it slip away without explanation.

So you know that (not always apocryphal) story people tell about having a tomcat or a dog for years and years and years- something called Tiger or Rover or Leon or Dasher. Then they tell you about how it goes missing one day.

The owner/couple/family search(es) high and low, desperately worried and anxious for their four-legged family member. Little Timothy is beside himself. There’s a vigil in the front room and neighbours pop by to offer pre-emptive condolences. Hours, days pass and then they happen upon the animal in some unlikely spot right under their noses – behind the shed, in the shed, whatever. Only it isn’t an animal now; it’s a whole new family, and it turns out they’ve made a fairly serious error in naming their pet.

There they are, five new puppies/kittens to take care of and one messed-up, deeply gender-confused parent. After all, if you’d been known as Butch your whole life you would probably have started believing it yourself. You might even have begun to explain that secret yearning to be called Lady or Princess to yourself as some sort of psychological disorder.